Friday, October 11, 2013

Dutch designer Marcel Wanders is a man of many ideas. His designs are born at his studio in Amsterdam and from there make their way all over the globe, whether it's in the shape of a set of utilities, ornamental furniture or as interior design, from private apartments to entire hotels.

Some time ago Marcel asked me to make a design for a mosaic wall for his own, ground floor apartment. A 9.8 by 32.8 feet wall, about 3 by 10 in meters. Quite a leap from my usual size of canvas! But luckily the original artwork needed to be only a fraction of the actual size, so to get the best effect of the 0.4" (appr. 1 cm) square, glass Bisazza stones.

The Italian Bisazza stones come in a variety of types, from solid flat colours, gold and silver, to stones with a more layered structure of hues and accents. The latter, 'natural' type was used for the wall. This makes the mosaic interesting from up close as well, where it's harder to make out individual shapes. (The fish eye detail at the top of this post is a good representation of such detail).

Marcel requested the use of Bisazza's Swarovski crystal stones in the design. The amount of stones was limited, plus the facets of the crystals, being placed on the wall, would catch light differently compare to 'free standing' crystals. So placing was extra important.

After sketching a couple of options I choose to go for a 'pixy dust' meets 'fog patch' solution; thin string-like clouds of crystal that would float through the fauna of my design. In this way the crystals would not interfere with the image and would have a role on their own, like an added layer.

Below are some snapshots for your viewing pleasure. (I took these right after the wall was installed when the living space was still under construction).

Above: the original artwork, the 'secret garden' for Marcels apartment.I did not want a perfect depth or a tromp l'oeil effect but a more playful, diorama like perspective. In that way the viewer experiences different layers depending on where he/she stands.

Although the original for this wall was handmade, the computer played an important role as preview tool. After all, pixels are similar to mosaic stones. Bisazza's own software turned the solid digital dots into the layered glass squares, giving the original artwork its own twist.

One of the Bisazza employees that came over to install the wall.

The stones were selected at the factory and prepaired on paper mats.Attaching the stones to the wall was fairly simple that way, it only took a weekend.

The crystal sketches. I placed a dark layer on top of the digital PSD document and dot-dot-dotted different shapes with white paintbrush and made a print out. In this way I had an idea of what I could do with a certain amount of crystals and at the same time keep an eye on the total picture.

I used stickers to 'sketch' the shape of the clouds. Lo tech and practical but also very eye straining.

The Bisazza boys removed the coloured stones I marked and replaced them with the crystals.

The result is subtle. You see light sparkling strokes when you walk pass the wall.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Back in 2007, at my very first visit to Seattle (at my very first exhibition at Roq la Rue Gallery) I met fellow-artist Charles Krafft. He very kindly gave me the story of the Timid Cabbage, a poem he once wrote, of which he thought would fit to my work well. The Timid Cabbage is a surrealistic and sweet story about an 'outsider' vegetable who, against all advice, follows his heart in search of his life goal.

Fast forward to 2011; inspiration to draw the tale of the Timid Cabbage came to me and I created a serie of 11 drawings to go along with the poem. These drawings became an exhibition at Roq's. And there and then the plan was made to bundle them in a book with Sympathetic Press as the publisher.

Another leap in time and some hard work and 11 additional Cabbage drawings later and the result is here!! Or rather, the results, because two versions of the Timid Cabbage book were made; a regular version and a limited deluxe version.

Both versions have a beautiful foil printed and embossed cover which give the books a rich look and a 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' feel. The regular version is grey with silver and the deluxe version is green with gold foil print. The 'deluxe' comes in an embossed slipcase, is signed and numbered and comes with a signed and numbered fine art giclée print. See pics here.

Order information will follow shortly and I'll update this post once I know more. Early birds can place a reservation by sending an email to Kirsten Anderson of Roq la Rue Gallery.

Below some more snapshots of the regular version!

Published by Sympathetic Press, Long Gone John, edited by Kirsten Anderson, book design by Femke Hiemstra, design direction and production by Mark Cox. First printing 2013, limited to 1000 copies, deluxe version limited to 100 copies.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

I'm happy to present to you my latest work in the shared show 'Fiebertraum'. Inspiration for his new serie of paintings and drawings found ground to grow both close to home, like the variation of song birds that came to visit my garden during the colder months ('Fun Bird Three') to more exotic locations, like the 'Holi Cow' triptych, inspired by the Indian Holi Phagwa festival.

They are brought together at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles and will be shown to public starting June 22 to July 20, 2013*. Colleagues d'art Mel Kadel and Deedee Cheriel will share the walls with me with their serie 'Carry Your Weight' and 'Episodes in the Abundant Oasis'.

If you'd like more information about the works, please contact the MK Gallery.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Sometimes fellow artists ask me; 'I got invited to join in an art exhibition but the gallery wants me to pay a fee upfront. Is that common?' Usually, it is not. Recently I too got an invite from such a gallery. The general and exchangeable tone of voice of the request and the long list of exhibiting artists of variable quality and style made some warning bells go off in my head. He're some wise words from the Art Business website about the subject;
- Link: http://www.artbusiness.com/osoqutscawas.html
- Link #2, with list of questionable galleries: http://www.artbusiness.com/artist-pay-to-play-list.html

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Ohoi! Hvordan går det? This Thursday and Friday, May 30 & 31, the annual 'Visueltdagene' take place in Oslo, Norway. It's an event with seminars, talks and exhibitions meant to inspire and bring creatives together and I was invited to give a lecture about my work. It will be my first visit to Norway and Visuelt and I'm much looking forward to it. Ser deg senere!

Friday, March 1, 2013

‘Felix de Forêt’, the forest guardian, is now
available as a fine art reproduction.

Size: 7.8 x 9.8 inch, 20 x 25 cm, print run 100 pieces. Available at the Femtasia Shop. The
background of this fine art giclee print is white. The print's title is
centered underneath the image, printed in light grey.

(These images are posted to give an idea of the detail of the giclée prints available on my website).